The present invention relates to water injection plants for secondary recovery of oil from underground formations which are penetrated by oil recovery wells and water injection wells, the recovery process involving injection of water under pressure into the formation to force oil to the oil recovery wells, all in a well-known manner. The invention may also be used to inject water into underground formations or storage areas for water disposal purposes. Prior art water injection plants have been in the form of permanent installations at or near a water injection well site, the plants including pumping mechanism and associated plumbing and electrical networks, all of which were mounted on a permanent concrete foundation and preferably enclosed in a suitable housing or building. In such prior art water injection plants, when the secondary recovery operation is completed, the plants have to be dismantled in order to be removed from the site, leaving behind a concrete foundation which must somehow be disposed of, usually at considerable expense. The plant must then be reassembled in order to be used at another location and the cost of assembly and disassembly is then repeated.
The concept of portable foundations for machinery is known in the prior art as illustrated, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,099,898, issued to E. T. Larkin on Nov. 23, 1937. But this concept has not been applied to water injection plants for oil field operations. Furthermore, the prior art portable foundation of the Larkin patent simply comprises a platform upon which machinery may rest in the field, and does not avoid the problem of field assembly and disassembly of equipment to form a plant such as a waterflood or water disposal plant, which may include a considerable amount of plumbing and electrical circuitry.